Birds of Celebes: Plataleidae. §09 



not "under" as Reichenow (d4) says — tail-coverts being very long, forming 

 a lyre-shaped fork reaching to within an inch of the tip of the tail-feathers 

 and evidently affording the tail much support at the sides by their stiffness. On 

 the under side of the ulna the skin is bare, and in life, as Rosenberg and 

 others observe, brilliant red in colour. Its habits and nidification are described 

 by de Bocarme (c 2), Legge (4), Hume (14), and others. As to its food, it 

 appears to be to a large extent insectivorous, though frogs, snails and reptiles 

 probably form its chief sustenance. For the African form Heuglin furnishes 

 the following list of what it eats: bees, grasshoppers, dragon-flies, caterpillars, 

 beetles, frogs, crabs, snails, reptilia and mice. 



FAMILY PLATALEIDAE. 



The Spoonbills are easily distinguishable from the Storks, Herons, etc., by 

 their bill, which is flat, long, narrow at the base and middle, and broadened 

 into a large spoon-shaped end; the general plumage is white (in one American 

 form washed with rosy, in parts crimson), and more or less of the head is naked. 



GENUS PLATALEA L. 



Dr. Sharpe (Cat. B. 1897, XXVI, 43) recognises 3 genera, the American 

 Ajaja differing from Platalea by its entirely bare head and pa^rtially crimson 

 plumage , the Australian Platihis by its having the nostrils situated in a deep 

 groove with lateral ridges. Platalea is nearly cosmopolitan. (See, also, Grant, 

 Ibis 1889, 32—58, pi. I). 



345. PLATALEA sp. 



Spoonbill. 



a. Platalea (1) Rosenb., Malay. Archip. 1878, 235. 



/;. Platalea luzoniensis (1) Rosenb., t. c. 278; (2) W. Bias., J. f. 0. 1883, 126. 



Touching the occurrence of a Spoonbill in Celebes von Rosenberg wrote: 

 "During my residence at Lake Tondano I received the bill of an example of 

 this genus shot several years before in the rice-fields of the village of Langowan. 

 I myself saw the bia'd at Saussu, but could not get within gun-shot. Moreover, 

 there are several examples in the Leyden Museum killed in the neighbouring 

 Sulla Islands". Mr. Buttikofer, after going over the material in the Leyden 

 Museum, has, however, informed us that there is no Platalea whatever from Sula 

 in that collection and that he is quite unable to say from where von Rosenberg 

 got his knowledge. Rosenberg describes his encounter with the species at 

 Saussu as follows: "Sailing along close to the coast, on the following day I saw 

 on a sandbank at the mouth of the Saussu River a large Heron (Ardea goliath), 



Meyer & Wiglasworth, Birds of Celebes (Dec. 'Jth, 1S97). 102 



